


Side Effects

by PunkHazard



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-24
Updated: 2014-03-24
Packaged: 2018-01-16 20:26:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1360645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PunkHazard/pseuds/PunkHazard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's impolite to leave an opponent on the mat before properly ending a match -- Stacker knows this intimately, and instinctively. Still, it's better than vomiting all over the back of a subordinate's head.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Side Effects

**Author's Note:**

> possible alternative summary for this being: cheung wei finally develops the raging dweeby crush on marshal stacker pentecost that the entire rest of the dome has been suffering from for years

"So," Mako drawls, dodging a swipe from Jin and turning the imitation blade in her hand, "kaiju are right-handed? Because I know you are not."

"They use their right claws more," Cheung confirms, arms crossed over his chest while his brother and Mako square off. He adds with a wry grin at the back of Jin's head, "They are also usually less careful."

Jin grimaces, but he rolls his shoulders and drops into a low stance. "Fine," he spits, then lunges at Mako, hand aiming brazenly for her throat even with the way the Marshal is watching them. Mako ducks, turns so her back is to his chest. She locks his arm over her shoulder and uses his own momentum to flip him onto his back, following up by bringing her prop weapon to a stop between his eyebrows.

"Well done, both of you," Pentecost says, clapping Mako on the shoulder as she pulls Jin to his feet and they step off the mat. "A responsive partner, someone you can learn from, is the best you can ask for when you work on technique. I don't think there's any documentation on which claws are dominant for kaiju."

"It's the first thing we look for," Hu tells him cheerfully. "With our background, it came in very... handy."

Mako's eyes roll toward the ceiling, but Stacker's mustache twitches and both Hu's brothers are giving him a blank look-- solid English skills don't necessarily mean an appreciation for puns. Still, Cheung takes the mat after Mako vacates it and joins the younger Weis to sit on the edge of the mat. "Marshal?"

Stacker's _Not today, Ranger_ , dies in his throat when the younger man looks at him. There's so much Mako in his expression that it borders on unnerving-- the piercing, clear-eyed challenge in it is every look Mako's given him since he told her that he has someone in mind to pilot her Jaeger who isn't her. "It's been a few years," he says instead, "so let's see how much you've improved."

"Sensei?"

"I'm fine, Mako."

Hu whoops, then punches the air a few times in encouragement. "Get 'im, bro!"

"Take it easy on him, sir!" Jin calls out as Hu collapses against his side, laughing. "Our big brother still has not recovered from that time you landed him on his butt four times in a row."

"That was six years ago."

"You still have nightmares about it. You are the _only one_ who still cares, brother."

"That's what he gets for being so cocky." 

Cheung bows quickly at Pentecost, but he whirls on both brothers with a snarl. "Who's being cocky now? You two are next."

"Ah, he'll take losing against the Marshal out on us." Jin and Mako laugh as Hu presses his hand over his heart and gives Cheung a pitiful look. "What kind of a big brother looks forward to beating his siblings?"

"The kind who knows his little brothers."

"Rangers," Stacker warns.

Cheung immediately faces him, back straight. "Sorry, sir. Ready."

Stacker makes the first move, a conservative swipe at his opponent's leg to throw him off balance, easily dodged. Cheung circles away from the edge of the ring, steps quick and light, fists held in front of him. He isn't usually the defensive type-- Jin and Hu are both leaning forward, eyes on Pentecost. 

"Look," Jin mutters gleefully as Cheung moves in for a body blow, which the Marshall intercepts before smoothly stepping around, bringing him to the floor, arm twisted behind his back for the first point down. "Doesn't waste a movement. Perfect technique, he's like a machine."

Hu pulls a leg up to his chest, mentally reviewing the last exchange. "So soft, too. Still teaching."

Mako doesn't remember ever hearing such flattering commentary when she fights-- the Weis love machines more than they like most people-- but she'd always known the Marshal was skilled. Still, the triplets are not easily impressed, and have mined pretty much all they can from their trainers before independently working on techniques specific to fighting kaiju. (That, and watching Bruce Lee movies on repeat.)

Cheung loses his second point to a light tap against the side of his head. A vein in his forehead begins to throb while his brothers smother laughs into their hands. Stacker taunts him with a raised eyebrow and the slightest tilt of his head. "Cool it, Ranger."

The Marshal loses his first point to a beautiful bit of footwork; Cheung feints to the left, spins right and presses the tips of his fingers right between Stacker's shoulder blades before he disengages and they face off again. He ties their match when he manages to drag Pentecost into a clinch, one leg hooking behind his knee and forcing him to the mat.

Mako and Stacker both smirk when a collective groan erupts from the younger Weis' corner: "Aw, sir, don't take it so easy on him!"

"He's not gonna shut up about this for weeks."

"Ah, we'll hear about it in all our drifts too."

"Mako, you know how annoying he gets, right?"

Mako fights back a grin when Hu leans on her shoulder, but she answers stiffly, "No comment."

The Marshal takes his next point when Cheung swings at his face; he intercepts the fist, locks it under his arm and drags him into a headlock, bringing one knee up to tap him on the solar plexus before releasing him. 

Jin nudges Hu on the shoulder, pitching his voice low enough that it won't disturb Stacker and Cheung, but not so low that Mako misses the conversation. 「Real fight, that would've laid him out. Bro's ribs haven't been in great shape since Tailsplitter.」

「Real fight, the Marshal's kneecaps would be done.」

「If I were him, I'd be all offensive. Marshal's not that young anymore.」

「Big bro sucks at defense, too. His speed's not _that_ great.」

「Only compared to you. And he's so strong it doesn't even matter.」

Both brothers wince when Pentecost scores his third point by dropping Cheung onto his ass after twisting out of a grab. Both of them are breathing hard by now, but the younger Ranger rolls to his feet, undaunted, expression calculating while he evades a series of body blows.

Stacker anticipates their final exchange; years of experience on top of numerous hours studying both their drops and time in the kwoon (against each other, as well as Mako) means that Cheung isn't nearly as effective as he would be against anyone else. When he closes the distance between them, Cheung blocks with his shoulder and misses the moment Stacker steps in to wrestle him into another clinch, this time forcing him facedown to the mat.

Before he overbalances completely, Cheung's elbow swings out and catches Pentecost in the diaphragm--

He'd hit harder than he'd intended, but that amount of force would barely have drawn more from his brothers than a minute or two of extra whining. Stacker's grip loosens abruptly as Cheung goes down, and he lands on the mat much more harshly than a restraining hand on his back would have allowed him to.

"If you'll excuse me," The Marshal murmurs from above Cheung, pats him once on the shoulder and marches out of the kwoon before he even manages to stand up.

"We told you you'd lose," Jin says as his eldest brother pushes himself back to his feet, but there's a thin veneer of worry in his voice. Hu's staring at the door, lips pressed in a thin line.

"Is he alright?"

"I hit him too hard going down," Cheung says flatly, sidestepping Mako and taking off after Pentecost. 

"Hey," Hu mutters, unconsciously shrinking back to press his shoulder against Jin's, "are we gonna get in trouble for this?"

Mako stops mid-stride on her way out, but she hears the uncertainty in Hu's voice and changes her mind. He'd told her once, when she'd been unhappy with a close call in the simulator, that the three of them still get nightmares about being kicked out of the PPDC sometimes. Or at least, one of them does, and the other two suffer along. That'd been two years ago. 

"The Marshal," Mako answers firmly, "would not punish the three of you for an accident."

Jin nods, latching onto the surety in her voice and wrapping an arm over Hu's shoulders. "Cheung can handle it."

"Now," Mako says carefully, picking up and folding Pentecost's blazer over her arm, "lunch has started. Let's save something for them."

* * *

It's impolite to leave an opponent on the mat before properly ending a match-- Stacker knows this intimately, and instinctively. Still, he thinks as he washes his face, it's better than vomiting all over the back of a subordinate's head. Stepping onto the mat with Cheung was ill-advised in the first place.

"Sir," says a voice from behind his door, followed by three hard raps against the metal. "Marshal? Are you alright?"

Stacker sighs, but he hits the switch and the doors slide open. "I'm fine, Ranger."

Cheung exhales, but he's tense, posture wary. "I apologize for my last strike. I wasn't thinking, and it was unnecessary."

"No need. It was rude of me to leave you on the mat as well." Stacker pointedly rubs his hand over his mouth at Cheung's blank look, then smiles reassuringly. "My health isn't what it used to be. You were not the reason I cut our session short."

"Ah," the younger man answers, "then my two points don't mean anything at all."

"Three points." Pentecost gestures at where Cheung's elbow had made contact and quirks an eyebrow. "You did well. In a true fight, you take every opportunity presented to you."

Nothing changes the guilty look on Cheung's face, the expression making him look less sure of himself than he ever has. He says miserably (though he hides it well enough), "I will remember to keep it to a dialogue, sir."

"Ranger," Stacker says firmly, "your job is not to worry about me, but to concentrate on improving yourself." He stops, breathes deeply and leans against the wall for support as another mild wave of nausea washes over him. When it subsides, he moves gingerly for the edge of his sparse but neatly-made bed. "If you do too much of the former, you have no time for the latter."

Cheung hovers in the doorway, and stares at Pentecost as if he's lost his mind when the Marshal lightly pats the mattress next to him. 

Their relationship has changed drastically in the years they'd known each other-- his and his brothers' relationship with Mako the catalyst for it, probably. On some level, Cheung's pretty sure that Pentecost has conflated them all into a cluster of impressionable young Asians constantly riding him for something expensive and time-consuming. The first time he sat with them at lunch without Mako (who was at the time half a wing away hounding engineers but within easy shouting distance) and Jin made a crack about it to her afterwards, Mako didn't talk to them for a week.

On every other level, he's positive they'll never occupy the same position Mako does to Stacker, but the allowances he makes for them and the way he treats them isn't so far off.

With only a bit of hesitation, Cheung sits.

"You are aware of my condition."

"Yes."

"Some days, the medication works well. Other days, the side effects are somewhat more serious."

Cheung is silent, but he nods, eyes trained on Stacker's face.

"Regardless, I can handle it." Pentecost bumps him lightly on the shoulder, gives him a wry smirk. "I'm under the impression that you have enough people keeping you busy."

"If you do not mind me asking," Cheung says, "what are the side effects?"

"Usually nausea. Not very severely."

"If you, ah." Cheung extends a palm, patiently waiting for Stacker to do the same. When he takes the Marshal's hand, he presses the tip of his thumb into the joint between thumb and index finger. "There's a pressure point here. It's supposed to help."

"A pressure point?"

"Like acupuncture." Cheung flashes him a lopsided, proud smile. "The circuitry suits were designed by Chinese scientists, Marshal. They used acupuncture as a model for which areas of the human body are most responsive to stimuluses and best at feeding back information."

"Stimuli."

"Stimuli. From latin?"

"That's right. How do you find it?"

Cheung demonstrates on his own hand, explaining as he goes. "Match the line where your thumb bends to the skin between these fingers, then press down. It should feel different from if you do it somewhere else. Should sting a bit. Just hold it for a while."

Copying the gesture, Stacker nods idly and switches to do the same on his other hand. "I'll keep that in mind."

Expression softening, as it does whenever he talks about Jin and Hu, Cheung tries to excuse himself with, "I should let my brothers know that I haven't accidentally killed the Marshal."

"You would have to try much harder than you did."

"I'm glad." He snorts, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck. "Some things, I don't think even we could get away with."

"You," Stacker says, and cuts himself off. After a few seconds, "The three of you are still worried about your place in the PPDC?"

"Logically, no." Cheung glances down when he notices Stacker looking at him, cracks his knuckles and then interlaces his fingers to stop himself from fidgeting any more. "But, people are not always rational."

"The U.N. is not as... cooperative as they have been in the past," Pentecost says, returning Cheung's confused look with a gesture to be patient. "There are seven Jaegers left in the program. Trust me when I say that the PPDC would not still exist if it weren't for you three."

Cheung looks down again, but Stacker can hear him inhale, a sharp hiss pulled through his teeth before he breathes out, shoulders slumping. "It's heavy."

"Yes."

"When it was just the three of us, this wasn't so bad."

"Do you regret it?"

"No," Cheung answers immediately, standing and moving for the door. He stops in front of it, turns and faces Pentecost. "But when I think too much about everything we are responsible for, it gets hard to breathe."

Stacker huffs, nodding as he also stands. Mako and the younger Weis should be saving them a seat in the canteen by now, if they haven't already begun to dig in. He squeezes Cheung's shoulder as he passes, muttering into his ear as the door hisses open. 

Cheung stares after him for a long second, then quickly falls into step behind him, lighter footsteps echoing each of the Marshal's on their way to the cafeteria. It should be unnerving; probably would be, for the rest of the dome, but Cheung takes comfort in the idea that Marshal Stacker Pentecost, head of the Pan Pacific Defense Corps., fixed point and last man standing-- is human after all.

He plays the exchange in his mind again, watching the back of Stacker's head; broad, squared shoulders moving with every precise, clipped step. 

_When I think too much about everything we are responsible for, it gets hard to breathe._

Schooling the dazed shock off his face, Cheung shoves his hands into his pockets and quickly adjusts his pace to his usual swagger instead of the half-trot he'd fallen into.

_You're not alone in that, Ranger._


End file.
